Team:Caltech

Engineering multi-functional probiotic bacteria

Engineered gut flora

The human gut houses a diverse collection of microorganisms, with important implications for the health and welfare of the host. We aim to engineer a member of this microbial community to provide innovative medical treatments. Our work focuses on four main areas: (1) pathogen defense, either by expression of pathogen-specific bacteriophage or by targeted bursts of reactive oxygen species; (2) prevention of birth defects by folate over-expression and delivery; (3) treatment of lactose intolerance, by cleaving lactose to allow absorption in the large intestine; and (4) regulation of these three treatment functions to produce renewable subpopulations specialized for each function. Our research demonstrates that synthetic biology techniques can be used to modify naturally occurring microbial communities for applications in biomedicine and biotechnology.

Why engineer gut microbes?

The large intestine: an ideal bioreactor

The human digestive tract

Talk about the colon

Probiotic bacteria and other natural examples

Electron micrograph of Lactobacillus brevis, a probiotic lactic acid bacterium

Talk about probiotics

Nissle 1917: Probiotic, commercially available E. coli

Mutaflor - a commercially available preparation of Nissle 1917

Talk about Nissle 1917

For more details, please see our project page.